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Tuesday, December 2, 2014

I made this card to fit into a business size envelope. It measures 3 and 1/2 by 8 and 1/2 when folded.

All the dinos come from the Stampendous set called Prehistoric Party. I stamped them all and then colored them in using my Copics. For finishing touches I added some Wink of Stella glitter brush and some Crystal Effects. All the party hats are shiny along with the balloons.

I used a couple strips of patterned paper along the top and bottom of the card for more fun color and the sentiment. I believe this paper was from DCWV.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Here's a simple card featuring some fun patterns on an adorable turkey :)

It's a standard A2 sized card using kraft card stock. I rounded 2 of the corners using my Corner Chomper.

The stamped sentiment is from Lawn Fawn's Harvest Season. I stamped it using Latte Chalk Ink by Hero Arts. The little brads came from Michael's - I'm not sure of the brand.

The ribbon is from Stampin' Up in Tangerine Tango - I got it free during the last Sale-a-bration sale.

Now for the best part, the turkey! He's a Silhouette image. The patterned papers I used for his feathers come from the Bo Bunny Garden Girl 6 by 6 pad. I really wantdd to make the feathers unique and fun, but I made sure to only use one really "out there" pattern and the others are more simple patterns in more traditional colors. Of course the little googly eyes just finish the effect.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoy this quick and fun card! I'll try and do something fancier soon, but boy have I ever been busy.

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you'll head over to the new site and check things out. I promise I'll be back to posting other types of projects here very soon so please continue following over here as well.

Monday, September 8, 2014

The inking technique for the main panel on this card was a total blast! I think it really enhances the embossing and softens the background a bit. I purposely got ink in some of the lower parts of the card to give it a different look, and also so that I couldn't consider it a "mistake" when the ink pad slipped a bit.

I'll be posting at the new blog every day this week to really kick it off :) Please consider following and subscribing over there. I'll post the cards here to help catch more of my readers, but soon I'll stop doing that and keep these 2 blogs separate - so sign up over there now or you'll miss out.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Here's some of the awesome things I've been making lately. I also have
an announcement to make. The reason I haven't been posting over here is
that I was working hard to create a new website. Why you ask? I'm now
a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and wanted a fancy new site to share all my
Stampin' Up! creations.

I'm using an entirely different platform to build that blog on so it's been taking me forever to learn the ropes. I wanted everything to look nice and be easy to navigate before I announced the new site to all my fantastic readers and friends here. I'm happy to report I love it now and I think the layout and navigation are working well.

I've been filming videos again! Really nice ones with decent lighting and a new HD camcorder. A step up from the videos I used to do. I think you'll really enjoy them. I'm also offering simple PDF downloads on my site with the instructions so you can save the instructions to your computer easily. I'm also writing out directions the good old fashioned way.

Am I giving up this blog completely? No, I don't intend to. However, the new site will be my primary focus from now on. Starting next week on Monday September 8th I will be blogging there daily.

Sorry I've been out of touch with everyone! I set up a new workroom, shopped for a new camera, had my husband build a custom video space, etc. It's been a whole heck of a lot of planning, research, learning new things, and work getting to this point. I will be trying to catch up with all my fab friends this week and show some love on your fantastic blogs :)

I would love it if you'd go check out my new site! There are already a few projects and videos up. All the photos you see in this post are of projects already posted to the new site. I also have a whole page for new stampers, or stampers that may be having trouble that covers all the basics for you in videos.

I'd love it if you'd follow, sign up for my newsletter, etc. I promise I'll have lots of great content coming and I think you'll enjoy the projects.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

My daughter is totally obsessed with ponies at the moment. Not real ponies, but the "My Little" variety. When I saw this image in the Silhouette store I just knew it would make a perfect little something for her.

The layers were a real pain, but I think the final result is pretty adorable. I used some Stickles in Yellow and Cotton Candy for some added fun.

The sequins are just cheapies from the craft store. I attached them with Glue Dots so no adhesive oozes out of the little holes.

I know I've been MIA, but it's because I've been working on something new and very exciting. I'll be announcing it soon :) You're going to love it.

Thanks so much for visiting. I'll be preparing to make my announcement shortly.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Someone I love very, very much is getting a double mastectomy today. Instead of a traditional greeting of "get well" I wanted something really encouraging and up lifting. So I chose this fantastic sentiment "she Believed she could so she did." I know her recovery won't be easy but I know she will get through this.

The papers are all from the Simple Stories Vintage Bliss 6 by 6 pad.

I inked around the edges of the card with Smoky Slate ink from Stampin' Up.

The yarn is actually very special, it belonged to my grandmother, and I received it in some of her belongings after she passed away. This card seemed like a fitting occasion to use it.

The AWESOME sentiment is from Stampin' Up's Feel Goods. I stamped it in Versamark and used white embossing powder.

The piece of patterned paper that the sentiment is stamped on is up on pop dots, and so is the piece underneath it. So this area is REALLY popped up with plenty of dimension.

I decided to decorate the inside a bit as well.

I had this yellow piece that had been used to die cut a shape previously. I decided to use the leftover piece to make a nice design inside the card. I just attached the yellow scrap to a white piece of cardstock and then used a paper piercer to accent the shape.

The strip along the bottom is decorated with a couple of tiny brads I purchased from Michael's.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

I saw a card with a similar layout in one of my papercrafting magazines and decided to put my spin on it.

The papers are from the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm 6 by 6 pad and the Simple Stories Vintage Bliss 6 by 6 pad.

I used the stamp set Heart-2-Heart # 6 from Papertrey Ink for the clouds and sun. I used Summer Sun and Bashful Blue inks from Stampin' Up.

The stamp set Rain Boots from SP & Company provided the boots and the sentiment. The boots were stamped with Regal Rose. I used my Copics to color over the patterned paper. It toned down the effect of the pattern a little bit and gave them a tiny bit of the illusion of depth.

The grass was made using a Martha Stewart punch. After I punched it out I inked it with Weathered Wood distress ink. The sentiment was stamped onto the punched grass with Versamark ink and then I used some Stampendous embossing powder.

The butterfly is an EK success sticker and I used a white Gelly Roll pen to create the line behind it.

I used a Copic Multiliner to create tiny dots all around the gray layer of the card.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

I wanted to play with the Perfect Pennants stamp set from Stampin' Up so the whole design started with using that. I used the Stampin' Up ink colors Yo Yo Yellow, Real Red, and Certainly Celery.

The patterned papers came from Echo Park's All About A Boy 6 by 6 pad.

The grosgrain ribbon has been in my stash forever, from one of my local craft stores.

The wooden hearts are from Studio Calico.

I usually struggle with masculine cards, but this one seemed to come together pretty easily. I'm loving wooden embellishments right now and was pleased that they added some real fun while still keeping the masculine vibe.

Monday, April 28, 2014

I've had a great time this April with my kids! I decided to do something fun and special for them this year to countdown to Easter.

The first step was making a whole bunch of paper Easter eggs to use as a countdown calendar. Each one was decorated differently, so had lots of creative paper crafting fun. I started off by cutting out a bunch of white eggs with my Silhouette and then decorated them in a variety of ways. I used inking techniques, washi tape, stickers, glitter, Copics, and even made one a shaker. They were lots of fun, but I ket them relatively simple to avoid having them take forever. Each one is completely different.

On the back of each egg I stamped a the numbers 1-20. Each day we got to hang 1 egg on the Easter countdown tree, and also do one craft project.

I searched the internet for fun kids craft ideas and made a complete list of 20 crafts numbered 1-20 that I printed and kept next to our tree. So each day when we hung our egg we could tell which project to do. Twenty straight days of crafts with the kids made me a little nervous, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Most of the projects required very little work on my part, and I included some super simple ones like coloring sheets on a few days so I wasn't too overwhelmed.

The kids loved it! The photo collage here just shows a few things that I thought were especially cute.

I know I've been away from my blog for awhile, but I've been having fun :) I'm happy to report I've been back in my craft room working on my projects again and have some fun things to share this week. I'm ready to come back and start sharing projects, as well as see what everyone else has been up to.

Monday, February 24, 2014

So, this kitchen remodel has taken over my life. *LOL* I am SUPER blessed that we are getting a beautiful new kitchen. It's awesome that we get to select each and every design element. It's also insanely stressful. I've been without a full working kitchen for over 2 months.

The old kitchen. Note the spaceship like light fixture, plain white laminate, and tons of wasted space above the upper cabinets. We also weren't feeling the breakfast nook, it caused constant traffic jams at the kitchen entrance. We've used it for over 3 years, and spent every day wishing we could re-do it.

My handy husband is doing all of this himself. He's our plumber, our electrician, the whole deal. He does excellent work and takes great pride in each step. It just takes him much longer than a professional crew. He's one man working full time and doing this kitchen on nights and weekends. Plus, he often stops to think about all his potential options and select what he feels is the very best one. I can be one heck of a perfectionist, but he gives me a run for my money when it comes to remodeling. The big disadvantage to this is the amount of time it takes. However it's saving us thousands and thousands of dollars and he can have each step done the way he prefers it. Frankly if he weren't doing it himself there is no way we could afford this new kitchen. There just isn't.

There's our favorite handy man hard at work.

Although the other side of the floor isn't finished, just check out this amazing curved edge on our tile! He hand drew a curve and was able to execute it perfectly. Take that professional tilers, my hubby has mad skills. *LOL*

We've been surviving with a makeshift temporary kitchen in our family room. Ah the adventures! The fridge hogs a lot of power, so if I have more than one other small appliance running with it the breaker trips. So I can't run the hot plate and the rice cooker at the same time. I've gotten creative and I'll use the rice cooker on the floor of the living room and then the hot plate in the temporary makeshift kitchen.

Our temporary kitchen with our old cabinets set up in the family room.

More of our temporary kitchen.

I've got some good basic appliances to use. A microwave, a toaster oven, a hot plate I ordered just for the remodel, an electric kettle, a rice cooker, a crock pot, and of course a coffee maker. I cook all our meals at home. Hardly ever eating out. It can be done, but it's exhausting. It can take me 2 hours just to make a simple batch of fajitas with my one little hot plate. We have certainly eaten a lot more junk food than normal for snacks, but have not resorted all the way to TV dinners as they are so expensive and I know my husband would eat at least 3 of them before we was full.

I have been buying an abundance of paper plates, plastic cups, and plastic utensils. This way I have fewer dishes. Still there are plenty to wash with the knives, cutting boards, having to use regular plates for things like thawing meat, the crock pot, etc. I take dirty dishes downstairs to the basement utility sink, often using a laundry basket to carry them. I also fill gallons of water and pitchers down there. If I just need a little water for the coffee maker or kettle I use the bathroom sink.

The whole house is totally taken over by this. Of course the family room is invaded with the makeshift kitchen. The dining room has stacks of back splash packages, and lots of boxes of things that belong in the kitchen. For 2 weeks after our new cabinets arrived and were not installed we had them all stacked in the living room and dining room. It was so bad we had to skip homeschooling for those 2 weeks because I couldn't even get to the kids' supplies. I basically hid in the basement and tried to pretend that none of this was happening. *LOL*

Where's the school desk? Behind all these cabinet boxes.

Here's the view from the other side, more cabinet boxes.

To top it all off since Archiver's closed I just HAD to go buy a big fixture right. So awesome! Except now it's in my house and we can't get it in the basement with all the stuff in the way, so now it's living in my poor dining room too! *LOL* Perfect timing, right? It will be wonderful when we finally figure out how to take it apart to get it downstairs, and hopefully re-assemble it without totally killing the poor thing. Oh fingers crossed.

This past week I got a cold that no one else in the family got. I just KNOW it's because I'm such a control freak and a perfectionist. Having my house all messed up and feeling like I can't clean properly and I don't know where things are or can't access them.

I'm seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. The cabinets are installed. Of course that means they are off the floor, so that's a huge plus. I've also been able to put some things in some of them. I can't load the top drawers of the lower cabinets without a counter top in place, but some is way better than none. My husband has gotten most of the wiring for the main lights, and our fancy new under cabinet lights done.

Here's the kitchen today. Starting to look like the space of my dreams.

The best part is that yesterday we finally picked out our granite. It will be installed in about a month. In the meantime I hope my husband can set up the water for the new fridge location and move the gas line for the stove. Then after the granite is installed he will just finish the plumbing for the sink and dishwasher. That's not something to do now because we need to see how the sink sits in the cabinet.

So, in about a month I will have a fully functioning kitchen. Not all the cosmetic components will be finished, but the kitchen will work and I'll be able to use it. Then he can fiddle around and take his time painting, installing the crown molding, and installing the back splash we're doing throughout the entire kitchen, and adding hardware to the cabinets.

Soon it will all be over. It will all be worth it, I hope! *LOL* It's expensive, it's exhausting, it's a kitchen remodel. As frazzled as I am I also feel truly blessed we are able to do this. To get to pick all the colors and details is pretty special. I love our new cabinets. The color is lovely and I even got some great built in organizing features, just a few, but they make a big difference to me. It's a dream come true in so many ways. I'm just looking forward to getting past this part of the process.

Thanks for reading about my adventure. I'm pretty frazzled and stressed, but what a wonderful result it will be. Seeing the progress at this point is amazing. The kitchen feels SO much bigger with the new layout and the lighter cabinets that go up higher. Once the crown molding is in it will touch the ceiling.

I love you all dearly. I will try and catch up on your fabulous blogs again soon :)

Thursday, February 13, 2014

This card was HEAVILY inspired by a card from Papercrafts Magazine's Stamp It! Techniques, Volume 2. You can see this card in a post here.

For the stamped images I used Hero Arts Brush Strokes and Stampin' Up ink colors So Saffron, Gable Green, Pink Passion, and Tempting Turquoise.

Instead of masking (like the original) I made this a separate panel up on pop dots. This gave me cleaner edges than the masking technique. I also changed the sequins to just a few in black for a more dramatic effect. Another thing I did differently was paint on some splashes of Creatology brand glitter using a small paint brush.

I also decided to add faux stitching lines all around the card to give it a different edge. I just used a Stampin' Up marker in black to do this.

My sentiment comes from a stamp set by Hampton Art and KI Memories called Click Click.

So, although the card is certainly a copy of sorts I put my own spin on it. I just couldn't resist making this one as I'm excited to have recently acquired this fun stamp set and LOVED the bright colors used in this design.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The main set I used was Betsy's Blossoms. I used Stampin' Up colors Melon Mambo, Pink Passion, Pixie Pink, Pretty in Pink, and Blush Blossom. The set comes with a lot of great floral images and I mixed and matched them in the different colors to create a little depth and some interest.

The strip across the front was cut to 1 1/2 inches wide. The beautiful sentiment is from the Stampin' Up set Perfectly Penned. I stamped it in Melon Mambo. I inked around the white piece in Pixie Pink. The whole layer is up on pop dots.

I rounded 2 of the corners on a 1/4 inch setting on my Corner Chomper.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Here's a very feminine card. I decided to use this for a birthday card, but with a different sentiment I think it would make a great thank you card too.

I cut the flip card from my Silhouette. It's design #28771.

The papers are from the Simple Stories Vintage Bliss 6 by 6 pad.

The gorgeous image is from Papertrey Ink's The Sweet Life set. The rose has 3 layers stamped in Blush Blossom, Pretty In Pink, and Regal Rose all from Stampin' Up. The leaves have 2 layers that are in Old Olive and Always Artichoke from Stampin' Up. I created a mask for the flower so I could stamp the leaves the way I wanted.

Around the frame I added some faux stitching with an Always Artichoke marker from Stampin' Up. The little pink dots are Liquid Pearls in Petal Pink. I just LOVE Liquid Pearls.

Here's the inside.

I simple used a Close to Cocoa Stampin' Up marker to do the faux stitching. Then I stamped a sentiment from Stampin' Up's Elementary Elegance using Regal Rose ink.

Friday, January 31, 2014

Since I was looking at her lovely card most of the designing was already done for me. I'll list the products I used :)

Silhouette with Echo Park Butterfly #39307

Yellow Papers: Here & Now 6 by 6 pad Lori Whitlock & Echo Park

Butterflies embellished with Bisque colored Liquid Pearls and Yellow Stickles. To make sure the wings will stay up and dimensional I attached the center of the butterflies with mini glue dots, and then used pop dots on both sides of the centers. This means the wings won't get pushed flat. It also means I couldn't put it in a regular envelope and mail it or the wings would easily become bend and smashed.

Main Pattern: Amy Tangerine Sketchbook 6 by 6 pad. This layer is up on pop dots. The plain yellow is flat to the card base.